Glendale residents give feedback at Space 134 workshop

A few dozen Glendale residents came to R.D White Elementary School on Saturday to learn more about and weigh in on the city’s proposed Space 134 project, a 30-acre park under consideration that would be built over the Ventura (134) Freeway.

“Relatively easy to imagine, a little more difficult to actually execute,” said Alan Loomis, deputy director for urban design and mobility for the city and the project’s team leader.

The team is in the early stages of conceptualizing the park and currently conducting studies to see if city officials would consider moving forward with the proposal.

“At this stage, we’re trying to think a little bit more deeply about what sort of amenities would such a park have and to what extent is the community willing to dream this big,” Loomis said, also assuring residents that the project was in no way “a done deal.”

Loomis noted the early stages are being funded by grants from the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

When one resident asked about how the project itself would be paid for, Loomis said that was the “million-dollar question.”

“In fact, quite a bit more than $1 million depending on how big you dream,” he said.

Glendale City Councilwoman Paula Devine and state Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale) attended the workshop and spoke in favor of the idea of a park over the freeway.

“(Cap parks) simply try to bring back a sense of community to a neighborhood that has been divided by a freeway,” Gatto said.

“This is an important project, an important dream that we have for our city,” Devine said. “We hope that all of your questions will be answered today and that you’ll leave here with a positive attitude toward this project.”

Residents broke off into groups and visited three workstations in the school’s cafeteria, each one focusing on a different aspect of the park project: mobility; design and activities; and funding and operations.

Space 134 team members answered residents’ questions and gave them the chance to talk about designs and amenities they would like to see or wouldn’t want at the park.

Red, yellow and green stickers were placed on a poster with several visualized ideas to indicate “ I dislike it,” “maybe” or “I love it.”

Michael Nilsson, senior mobility planner for the project, said team members plan to take their community studies to Glendale City Council members sometime in January or February to see if they want to move on to the next phase.

Standing near signs showing renderings of the proposed park, Nilsson told attendees that if all goes well in the public-commenting phase and city officials were to OK the park “most likely” the first signs of construction would not be until 2020.

“I’m going to have two years of building outside of my house,” said Glendale resident Dan Destler. “Not lovely.”

Destler came to the meeting with some reservations about the project, saying he was not only worried about what building park space next to residential areas would mean for his neighborhood, but also that he didn’t understand how the project could be approved in the midst of a historic drought in the state.

“(They) keep hitting us and hitting us saying, ‘You gotta conserve water’ … and they’re going to build parks?” he said. “Until the drought is over, it doesn’t make sense to me.”

Destler asked Nilsson some questions about the proposal and said his house borders the freeway, making him concerned about the amount of construction and noise associated with the project.

Nilsson told him at they were currently in the “what if “ stage and it was all about finding out what the park would be to the community.

“Is it a cherry pie? Is it an apple pie? Is it a really big pie? Is it a smaller pie?” Nilsson said.

“Is it a tart?” Destler said in response.

“We want to make sure that we address any concerns from neighbors like you that are potentially very close to this project,” Nilsson told him shortly after.

“I love the idea of a giant park,” said resident Lisa Lessa. “To me, it’s like Central Park here in Glendale, which I love.”

She added she was worried about what the park would mean for traffic congestion, but felt confident the city would handle it.

Loomis said he and his team hope to answer residents’ questions about the drought, air quality and other concerns if the City Council votes to continue the project.

“That’s kind of where we’re at right now is trying to find out what questions we need to answer if we keep moving forward so the community begins to get the answers they need, so they know if they want to support a project like this or not,” Loomis said.